WingColors

I was at school still. I'd just been rowing and was biking into school. As I rode in I got shouted at by one of my friends to come into one of the geography classrooms. They had run back in before they could explain anything.

I got in there and remained fixed in the doorway when I saw, repeating over and over and over again, the first of the two planes hitting.

The second hit and I thought it must have been a hoax. Nothing like that could ever happen to America. It actually took a couple of days to finally realise that it had.

But I can't remember there being any tears -- from anybody. I don't wish to demean the genuine suffering that people went through, but I've a feeling that amongst most Brits, denial was pretty rife at the very moment it had happened.

And in retrospect the saddest part is not the shock of those few minutes that smudged out so much life, but the resultant global repercussions that have killed countless people, even families and often without report. The world became a whole lot less friendly six years ago.

I was sitting at my desk doing my usual morning news reading. I opened up USA Today's site and it reported that a plane crashed into one of the towers. I told everyone else in the room but just thought of it as a random accident. I kept refreshing every few while I heard buzz about it outside our room. A couple of our guys went down to the main building's lobby to watch the TVs which run CNN all day that are set up down there for visitors. After hearing that the Pentagon was hit too and the towers fell, our CEO sent everyone home. I was in complete disbelief. Truly a "what the hell."

I did just that and my wife was hysterical when I got there. We went down to her mom's house because we didn't know what exactly was happening and we live pretty close to Wright Patt (since it is one of the major military installations here).

The drive down the highway wasn't too bad but once we got into town it was crazy slow. Gas stations jacking up their prices to over $5 a gallon. People getting into fender benders. Not a good day at all for anyone. I'm not putting my experience in "safe" Ohio above the victims' in NY, VA, and PN. But that day, no one knew what was happening and what was going to happen next.

I remember hearing about it online through IM and then turning the TV on and seeing the second plane hit. I had a very surreal moment as it looked so film like. I was living in Brighton at the time and it was one of my friend's birthday's. It turned into more of a wake than birthday celebration as there were a lot of people there who were trying to find out about people they knew - it seemed painfully slow to get any information across the pond. Although I didn't know anyone personally involved I felt the ripples of emotion that night even across the pond. I remember when I saw it on TV shouting to Simon and him coming in from the garden which he was working in - it just seemed so unreal and it was hard to believe perhaps as in the UK we were so removed from the incident it was more like watching a movie than participating.

I was still in college, and I remember waking up to see an IM from my friend saying "Turn on the news, we're being attacked." Of course I thought it was a joke, but sure enough, I turned it on to see a tower burning. Then the second plane crashed into the building.

I think it was the most disturbing thing that I have ever witnessed. I couldn't focus in class all day. I don't think I had ever seen anything of that stature while being alive. I pretty much spent that whole evening/night with friends and watching the news. It really is a day I'll never forget.

I was 11 and being homeschooled. I had just started math for the day when the neighbor called and told us to turn on the tv. I didn't do any more school that day.

At the time I didn't understand what was happening. I don't think anyone did. My dad was an air traffic controller in St. Louis, and we tried to call him to find out what was going on (he always gets some inside scoop talking to government officials and pilots from around the country), but he was busy helping to ground all the planes.

It was surreal.

I was at work doing some ad work for our 100th anniversary catalog... when I got an IM from a friend that a plane hit the WTC.

I thought he was pulling my leg so I went around the office looking for proof and no one knew anything had happened either. We had to turn on the TV to the only station we could get in (via the aid of a Cat5 Cable jammed in the antenna jack) which was a Spanish News Station.

We sat there in shock for hours... we shut down the office at about 2 and sent everyone home to be with their families. My wife was 6 months pregnant sleeping at home on 9/11... I tried calling her but she wouldn't wake up enough to really be coherent so I let her sleep.

I was at RightOn's house, drinking all his beer. I had drugged his wife so she wouldn't try and stop me. The phone rang, she picked it up, and I just... kept drinking.

(Sorry, I though a little humor needed to be interjected. I was actually at home, having just flown from Washington DC the night before. Woke up to the news that "A plane crashed..." at about 8:50am. I missed my music history class that day. Because I was drinking all of RightOn's beer.)

So that's where my beer went...

I had just started my freshman year of college a week before. I was excited for classes and happy to finally be in college. I was starting to get into the rhythm of things. I was at my boyfriend’s apartment, in Arlington, just outside Washington, DC. We had a tiny puppy, only 6 1/2 weeks old. He needed to be walked frequently. So before I left for the morning’s classes, I had to take him outside. Out of the blue, I heard a loud boom… something similar to a very large car backfire. I was puzzled, but wrote it off as just another noise of the city.

I went inside, put my puppy in his kennel, and headed out to the Metro (DC’s subway). As I walked, an army of police cars were flying up and down the streets, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Again, I wrote it off as a noise of the city. When I got to the Metro, I heard fearful whisperings. “Terrorists”, “bombs”, “Pentagon”. (The Pentagon is located in Arlington, not DC.) When I finally asked what was going on, a woman told me that the Pentagon had been bombed.

They say that at certain moments in your life, time just stands still. This was one of those times. I heard the words, but my brain didn’t want to recognize them. It didn’t want to understand what they meant. Being raised in the United States, it was inconceivable to me that anything could happen to my country. My government, my people… we were supposed to be safe.

My line on the Metro stayed open long enough for me to make it the two stops into Foggy Bottom, where GWU’s lower campus is located. When I got there, I heard more and more talk about the “bombing”. Then someone told me that it hadn’t been a bomb, but a plane. A plane had crashed into the Pentagon, and it had been intentional.
I lived on the upper campus, about 3 miles from Foggy Bottom. The city was in a panic, cell phones didn’t work, classes were not in session, and the shuttle running between campuses wasn’t working. So a group of us had to walk. As we walked, I thought. Someone said New York had been hit, as well. I wondered what was happening. I didn’t know why it was was happening. I wanted to talk to my parents, but all lines were jammed. I was scared and lonely, despite being surrounded by my friends. But they couldn’t comfort me because they were terrified as well.

We had to climb straight up hill for much of the walk home. If you turned and looked east, down the hill, you could see the Pentagon. A huge plume of blackish-gray smoke demarcated its location. We were silent and uneasy. No one was crying. When I reached my dorm, my roommate had the TV on. A few minutes after my arrival, the second World Trade Center building was brought down. The news just kept showing the same footage, over and over again. Planes, fire, destruction. Death. I sat on my bed in awe. There were no words, no thought.

Sadly, we've reached a level of denial on a lot of this... there are grade schools in Utah that are refusing to even discuss 9/11 because they don't want to "dwell on violence"... Yeah, lets ignore one of the deadliest attacks against the US.

It's nice to see people remembering this day, because the people who want us wiped off the map wish we woke up on 9/11/01 every day.

It's only a matter of time before people try to turn 9/11 into nothing more than an hour long special on PBS once a year.

I won't forget.

Yeah I have to say that I'm intrigued by some of these stories. Hopefully more contribute.

I will never forget what happened on 9/11, and don't want to forget the atrocious circumstances surrounding that morning, and don't want to forget the succeeding hours, days, weeks, months and years.

I was living in CA at the time, and working for NASA. I was on my way to work at 5:30 a.m., Pacific Time. I remember driving on the dark (the sun had not risen yet), long and desolate dry lake bed towards Edwards Air Force Base, and hearing about the first plane on the radio, when they broke into the music being played with the horrific news.

Traffic was backed up at the entrance gate to the base, as the military was doing extra identity and car security checks.

When I finally got to work I immediately turned on the TV in my supervisor's office, and saw the events, and by then the second building had been hit.

I was in shock, we all were in shock. It felt surreal, as if I were watching a movie. And, no words could ever articulate the emotions I felt, once the shock started wearing off.

May all those who died (excluding the mastermind/s and perpetrators), rest in peace, and may the surviving family members try to find some serenity in their lives, if that is ever possible.

May all those who died rest in peace

Not taking away from your post but I'd like to reiterate the point with one small addition.

May all those who died, minus the excrement who sent you to your graves, rest in peace.

Amen

In a lock down in a public school in the suburbs of DC, watching it on the television.

I was working for an ISP, we had no tvs in the office, we were listening to NPR. We kept trying to get news from different online sources but everything was so slow to respond it was almost impossible.

I remember we went out to lunch that day and the next, and ate outside. It was surreal. You don't realize how much air traffic there is, and how much you tune it out until it's completely gone.

RightOn: I amended that sentence.

Indeed.

Amen

I lived about 40 minutes outside of NYC so I know quite a few people whose parents were commuters to the city. I was in high school at the time, and ridiculously enough, I didn't find out about the events of the day until school let out at 2:30. The school decided to downplay the whole event by not informing any of the students of what had happened. You could tell that something was going on because the teachers were acting funny and an unusual amount of students were being pulled out of school early by their parents. To top it all off, at the end of the day, they announced that "an accident" had occurred in the city and that some students were going to need to stay in school late. They then proceeded to read that list of students. Apparently their plan was to keep students calm by letting us go the entire day without being informed of it all.

So anyway, I get home and I'm shocked to find out that the WTC had collapsed. I couldn't get my mind around it. I had seen it so many times, been on top of it, and walked by it, and suddenly it didn't exist. My town happens to be on top of a mountain, and on a clear day you can see all the way to the city from the right spot, and usually the WTC as well. My mom and I drove up to that spot, and all you could see was the smoke pouring out of that area of the city. In the end, all of my friends' parents who worked in the city made it out in one piece, though a little bit shaken up. I believe there were two of my classmates who lost parents to the attacks. You don't really know what to say to those people because you can't even begin to justify the circumstances of their parents' deaths. The next few weeks were even worse, as you heard about more deaths of people you are remotely connected to. Friends of friends, family of friends, people in town, people from the same hockey organization (I played club hockey), they just didn't stop coming for those couple of weeks. You always see those bumper stickers and shirts that implore you to "never forget", but no one who lived through that will ever forget it. Whether you were in Alaska or in NYC or DC, I don't think it's possible to forget.

this was awfull , i can't find words about this situation , very offensively , pitifully to this ****** - terrorist , this "animals" haven't got right to life..........